The Independent View: End of Year Ramblings

The percentage of Americans identifying as political independents increased in 2011, as is common in a non-election year, although the 40% who did so is the highest Gallup has measured, by one percentage point. More Americans continue to identify as Democrats than as Republicans, 31% to 27%. These results are based on more than 20,000 interviews conducted in 20 separate Gallup polls in 2011. Gallup has computed annual averages of party identification since 1988, when it began regularly conducting interviews by telephone. The prior high percentage of independents was 39% in 1995 and 2007.

So with just 20,000 interviews, the voting public is independent. But after reviewing the registration numbers in 2012 of active voters we find: in New York 20.49%, California 20.90%, and in Florida 21.04% are registered in no party. But we do know that the registration of new voters have increased the percent of no party voters.

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This was the year California used "Top-Two" Open Primaries. In New York we have tried twice for Non-Partisan" Municipal elections. The first time with the help of Mayor Bloomberg, we got it on the ballot but lost 2 to 1. The second time we got the issue in front of the New York City Charter Revision Commission, but could not get it on the ballot. We also lost Top-Two in Arizona by a 2 to 1 vote in 2012.

I have some reservations with Top-Two and will start looking into the workings of Blanket Primaries so it will pass a Supreme Court test.

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As an active member of the New York City Independence Party, we have as our mission the following issues:

The New York City Independence Party set out 18 years ago with a simple idea: to create a new and independent reform movement of New Yorkers from all walks of life. We are a new kind of minor party – genuinely independent, built from the bottom up, and not tied to the Democratic and Republican parties.

The Independence Party has over 100,000 members in New York City. over 3,500 of them have joined local county committees in all five boroughs, the governing bodies of the organization. Thousands more sign petitions, volunteer, and play a role in the Independence Party’s many campaigns for political reform.

Partisan politics holds back development in our city. We support political reforms that bring the one million New York independents into the heart of the political process, such as nonpartisan municipal elections, seating independents on the Board of Elections, separating party interest from the public interest, and making sure that good policy, rather than partisan politics, guides the running of this city.

We have built a new electoral coalition in New York City that took center stage in 2005 when 47% of African Americans and 65% of independents supported our mayoral candidate, Mike Bloomberg, in his re-election bid. We’ve partnered with Mike Bloomberg since 2001, when the votes on our line gave him his first margin of victory. In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg became an independent himself and we believe he has governed our city in a nonpartisan fashion. In 2009 the Independence Party received 150,000 votes on our line for Mayor Bloomberg, a record breaking number for a minor party.

The New York City Independence Party believes in change and community. We need to change the culture of New York politics so that it is grounded in genuine civic debate that includes and empowers all New Yorkers. And it is by building a new community of independents from the bottom up that we can effect that change.

As part of this independent movement, IndependentVoting.org has launched a national campaign to lobby Congress to hold hearings on the structural discrimination in our electoral system against independent voters. The purpose of our campaign is two-fold: 1) To educate Congress and shine a light on the effect of partisan control of the election process, namely that a large % of independent Americans have a second class status; and 2) to urge Congress to investigate these biases by holding hearings.